Hamilton Cain analyzes salaries and fertility rates to figure out the best time to start a family.

There was a time—at the dawn of the decade, before our children—when my wife and I walked upright like liberated apes, chins jutted out, confident. Back in the day when New York seemed an expensive playground, tailored for a young married couple thrilled with each other’s company, the antics of both cats, the whirl of each week. Jobs a-coming-and-a-going, but who gives a damn, there’ll always be one; credit card woes flaring up sporadically, like sunspots, but not enough to burn us. And the phone ringing constantly—friends with spontaneous invitations. Brunch at the Grange; martinis at the Temple Bar. Are you in? Are you in?

But the Golden Age invariably drew to a close. Each month my wife grew more impatient, more attuned to the drone of the clock in her head. Those matinees at Lincoln Center, leisurely dinners at our favorite Italian restaurant in Chelsea: the luster had tarnished somehow. For a while—two years, maybe three—I avoided the stilted conversations, her accusatory stares. But around my 37th birthday an internal switch abruptly flipped.

Thirty-seven: it seemed like the perfect age to start a family. But just how on target—or off—was I?

♦◊♦

When and wherever men gather, casually or in formal settings, you can hear the anxious pique in their voices: do I have what it takes to be a good father? Fumbling for an answer to that daunting question, many men look to their wallets. The best thing I can do for my kids? Pay the bills!

Men tend to fixate on the role of provider, with income the primary metric to evaluate success. The trends lines justify this thinking. In the middle of the last decade, before the current economic turmoil, male participation in the American workforce peaked between the ages of 25 to 35, at a rate of 93.2 percent. Incomes ranged widely, however.

In 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 35- to 44-year-olds earned a median income of $65,839, while men in the 25- to 35-year-old bracket earned $48,749. On the other end of the spectrum, those below the age of 24 made less than $28,246. The big breadwinners were heads of households between the ages of 45 and 54, who pulled in an annual median pay of over $70,000.

Testosterone levels decline slowly from the age of 30—roughly at the rate of one percent per year—impacting how fast and straight a man’s sperm swim.

But right around age 55, a man’s earning power starts to decrease, and something important happens for many fathers: it’s time to send his offspring of to college. That’s probably too late. Ideally, the youngest child would graduate from college when dad hits the age of 54 (assuming a standard age of 21 for most college graduates)—when the old man still has plenty of earning power. That being the case, a man would need to sire his final child around the age of 33. If he plans to have more than one child, he needs to start well before his thirty-third birthday—say, before the age of thirty. While you may struggle financially a little while the kids are young, you’ll be making money when the biggest economic impact hits you.

The Carnoys found that older fathers were more established in their careers and had more time to devote to nurturing their children. As Martin Carnoy noted at the time, older fathers “have fought the workplace wars and are much less sanguine about the rewards of long work days. Almost everyone we interviewed was spending a lot more time with their children than they did as 30-year-old fathers trying to climb career ladders. Family plays a much more important everyday role in older fathers’ lives.”

For the past decade, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has researched the question whether or not older men make better fathers. Since the release of its initial report in 2000, the NICHD has drawn direct connections between men with strong self esteem and their ability to tend to their children—the stronger a man’s image of himself, the better a father he proves to be. Not surprisingly, self esteem tracks the degree of stability in a man’s life. Again, men in their 40s, 50s, and 60s are generally on firmer footing in their careers, often own their own homes, and therefore can commit to the intricacies and tasks of childcare with a patience and attention to detail rarely found in their 20- and 30-something brethren.

So should men delay fatherhood as they focus on their careers? Should they strive with that single purpose in mind, inching up the corporate ladder, squirreling away a down payment on a brick Colonial in Scarsdale, putting aside end-of-the-year bonuses for private school? In 2004, the National Center for Health Statistics observed that roughly 24 in 1,000 men become fathers between the ages of forty and forty-four, an 18 percent jump in less than a decade. Surely there’s no harm in waiting until, say, your forties to start a family, right?

About Hamilton Cain

A finalist for a 2006 National Magazine Award, Hamilton Cain is the author of the forthcoming This Boy's Faith, which Crown/Random House will publish in April. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.

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My karate sensei is going to be a first time dad at age 46…to twins! He, in his own words, is “scared sh-tless”….I told him I would help out with babysitting! He owns his own home and has plenty of assets, but his job is in sales and depends on commissions (or some weird formula), so his financial picture is not as secure as he would like….But he is throwing the baby shower at some ritzy country club, so I assume his family would help out if he was in dire straits…I think he is freaking out over this in… Read more »

A well written article that I can readily I identify with. At 36 I became a stepfather to a 10 and 14 years old. At 36 I was better prepared for the responsibilities and emotional demands of stepfatherhood. At 40 I became a biological dad to Nathaniel. In my 20’s I was too selfish and self-centered to be an effective parent. My son today is a emotional healthy, confident and intelligent 11 year old I feel in large part of my prepared as an older parent. I recognize the important of spending quality time with my son and have alot… Read more »

@Erin All what I can say again and again is about if you know any reason why a man should marry and have children in Western countries, let me know. – I think, it’s too risky. Better stay single, as Western laws are not supportive to you as a man/husband/father and not even to your child if it is a boy. The question about the ideal age to become a father – I was 26 for the first, and 29 for the second child, same age as my foreign wife. Just my opinion, it’s best you are a rather young… Read more »

Yohan, I’m more then glad you went your own way and found love. That’s really fabulous! But foreign countries aren’t all living in some utopia gender world where men and women get nothing but respect from their partners and everyone is perfect and happy. You’re relationships sounds very nice. But guess what? My very American parents had a very similiar one until my father passed away over a year ago. Loving relationsihps in America aren’t myths. It’s not deeply misogynistic to talk about issues men face in the court system. They certainly do face issues that should be discussed. But… Read more »

Why not? I did so already, and my 2 daughters are already 30+, university-educated. And I take care also for a fostergirl. But I am not living in a feminist Western country and my wife is Asian, married since over 35 years, never divorced. And what about you? Are you married, do you have children? No problem for me personally, I found my way out of the Western feminist rip-off, but I think about all these poor fathers, who were cheated and left by their wives, and often it turns even out they are not even the biological fathers and… Read more »

Yohan, what advice do you/have you given your 30+ daughters about marriage and men? Are they already married? Are they the only good women left? It’s a low precentage of men that turn out to be raising children that aren’t biologically theirs. It happens and it’s unfair to both the fathers and the children, but it’s not the most typical event. But you aren’t going to help any man by telling them they don’t get anything out of fatherhood and it’s all “western” feminist fault and to not get married because there is a chance to get hurt or screwed… Read more »

Good analysis here for those planning on having children. One little gripe though: you mean IF a man is planning on being a father. There’s also the childfree option, and for some people it’s great at any age!

People will make it work, no matter what age they are, if they really want kids. Not everyone meets their partner at 25.

But it’s good to open conversations about male fertility and breaking the stereotypes that often follow that. It’s not just a female question of age vs. children, clearly it’s also a good question for men to ask themselves too.

Great article and excellent summary of this complex topic. Thank you. I wonder if the “better parent” box will gradually become younger as more young men now have better role models in their own fathers, and in the culture generally (not least of which in the GMP!). Also, as more women are capable of being co-breadwinners, this may help couples reduce financial risk and become more financially stable earlier in life, as well as create boundaries on work that ennable both parents to have time and energy for good parenting. I suspect men who are capable of forming equal partnership… Read more »

PS – Isn’t the best judge of our parenting our children after they are grown? Then, after they have autonomy, they sometimes feel freer to say whether what we have done for them is good. And sometimes they have some world experience as well.

This is one of the challenges of parenting – a difficult job and you don’t really know how you did until it’s over.

“… more young men now have better role models in their own fathers, and in the culture generally …”

Young men have virtually no positive role models in our culture. When men are culturally visible at all, it is as objects of defamation and disdain.

* Exhibit one is the orgy of murderers, rapists, and other violent men that feed the insatiable western appetite for man-hatred.
* Exhibit two is a litany of buffoons, losers, drunkards, and idiots providing comic relief and allowing everyone to feel better in comparison.

The modern “positive role model” has one inescapable requirement: no penis.